Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[grampagen]

They should've cut to black and rolled credits after this scene.



Imagine if they let the audience stew and speculate - for two years, even - about the fallout from a potential and explicit alliance that threatened to uproot everything?

But then the movie kept going, oh well.

[Nik Hasta]

Rereading ALL of One Piece in one go? Damn, I remember when I first got into One Piece (when the Enis Lobby arc was winding down), and it took me the better part of a week for me to read it all. And that was over a decade ago, when there were only 430 or so chapters to read.

Now it's 1007 chapters long.

It's a pace-y series so I'll probably chew through it in a couple of weeks but I'm starved for content and I've not read the early stuff in a really long time.

For example, I'd forgotten a lot of quite how complicated the Alabasta Arc is in terms of the political machinations and the distinct factional stuff at work.

Like, One Piece does like... low floor/high ceiling storytelling really well. If that term can be applied to narrative. It's super accessible and fun and hits broad emotional beats really accurately but also has a bunch of complexity and considered design going on under the hood that is there if you choose to look for it.

It's actually quite unique I think, especially when compared to a lot of its contemporaries.

[Nik Hasta]

They should've cut to black and rolled credits after this scene.



Imagine if they let the audience stew and speculate - for two years, even - about the fallout from a potential and explicit alliance that threatened to uproot everything?

But then the movie kept going, oh well.

I did have this exact thought process when watching it myself.

That felt like a great climactic cliffhanger thing and then we kept rolling.

I didn't mind the rolling myself but I was surprised that it kept on going.

Anyhow, it's well past midnight here, I should sleep.

[Jcogginsa]

As Snoke was initially presented as someone who was careful, only revealing himself to his direct subordinates via hologram, but then all of a sudden decided to sit opulently in a large red room to pontificate. There are ways his death could've been handled that would've produced the same powershift, that wouldn't have involved making a parody of his character.. Now I'll admit, the more I think about this, this could- and probably should- be chalked up to JJ Abrams and his lack of consideration for the fact that he wouldn't be leading for the second film in the new trilogy. So I'd be perfectly fine saying this isn't Rian's fault. I can't shift that blame for Hux however, he had considerably more screen time and had more of an established character going into TLJ. To have him turned into the 'comic relief baddy' wasn't anything you could say was 'good subversion'.

Where was it stated that Snoke only contacted people through Holograms? I don't recall any indication of that in TFA.

Not things I had issues with. Finn was a great support character for Rey, initially. Had his own compelling enough backstory, (child soldier that shook off his programming and is doing his best to either atone or prevent this from happening in future), and worked well with Rey's scrappy yet ultimately altruistic, survivor characterization (until Abrams decided to crap all this dynamic in RoS). My issues with Luke's characterization is a bit less 'subversion was bad, and the way it was subverted was detrimental'. Luke falling is fine, probably even to be expected considering he's still human. How he fell? It could have been handled far, FAR better than what we were given, and all it would've taken was him simply dropping the Lightsaber at his feet (and not throwing it comically, and dismissively away)… which would've managed the same effect... and him not milking a Giraffe-Walrus thing and drinking the warm, blue milk like some kind of Wildman.

Two simple changes, and now the solid foundation you had to work with is absolutely unshakeable:

I feel like you're assigning far too much importance to him throwing the lightsaber away and him milking an animal. They're hardly character ruining moments. I fail to see how changing them would change anything about Luke's characterization

(Had to snip part of your response for length reasons, sorry.)

The issue is not with 'established lore' in the sense that I want established lore to be preserved at all costs. Star Wars lore is something that has been retconned quite a bit, to say its lore, or lore in established settings in general should never be changed is not something I believe, in general. The issue I have with THIS particular lore break however, is the problems it causes for the story as a direct result of the action. Why?

If you can take a ship and fly it at lightspeed into another ship, and utterly obliterate a fleet of ships surrounding it in the process; it breaks the lore in a way that causes direct plot issues because 1) it means this is something people are aware is possible 2) raises the question of why they haven't been doing it literally forever... as literally all you'd need to do, to win any space battle EVER, is take a ship and Kamikaze it into another ship.[/B] That not only cheapens the stakes of anything going forward, but is just objectively stupid.

I don't see that as being lore breaking. There are two different ways to explain

1. Genuinely no one ever thought of it before. Most genius strategist characters (Which is not the kind of character Holdo is, but the logic is still applicable) in fiction have their Genius shown by doing stuff that should be obvious to anyone in-universe, but isn't. And that gets forgiven because a lot of real life strokes of Genius look painfully obvious in hindsight.

2. The maneuver is not nearly as easy to pull off in-universe as it is to the audience. This is the explanation they settled on in canon, IIRC.

To address my comments about Holdo being stupid (because I feel like this might be part of the problem and my fault for typing fast and loose...) it's in response to how she handled the events leading up to the Hyperspace Kamikaze. Keeping everyone in the dark to the point where one person (Poe) attempts to stage a munity due to thinking Holdo herself is a First Order Spy is stupid. After all, if the mutiny had been successful? They all die. The single thing Holdo is attempting to prevent. The demand, implicit or explicit in this scenario, to simply 'shut up and follow orders' is also not a good thing. If the goal was to maximize the saving of lives, while mitigating the losses; it could have been written in a way that managed that without making Holdo look stupid.

Writing a character, any character, like that is not a good thing. Especially if the character is on the side fighting against 'shut up and follow orders'.

Holdo didn't keep everyone in the dark about the plan. She told everyone who needed to know about it, and because Poe's only role in that plan was to sit his butt in a seat, he didn't need to know.

Poe's mutiny is because of HIS own flaws as a character, not Holdo's.

As for this?

It wasn't established that Vader wasn't his father? All Old Ben said was that 'Vader killed Anakin', which in a metaphysical sense is true. Anakin's personality was subsumed by the Vader persona when he fell to the dark side. Ignoring the complicated discussion about what is the 'self' however, this wasn't a lore-break in the same way the Hyperspace Kamikaze is (considering it would also raise broader questions and cause problems with the rest of the sagas); it was more of a subversion. Almost blow-for-blow the same as the subversion of expectation with Rey's parentage. Nobody thought Vader was Luke's father. When it was revealed he was, people lost their minds. Everyone thought Rey was going to be the daughter of someone like Luke, Leia/Han Solo. When Rian revealed that she wasn't, people lost their minds.

Good subversion of expectation =/= Breaking the Lore in a way that causes more problems than it solves.

The whole "It's true, from a certain point of view" thing was just a band-aid to smooth over an immense contradiction. An effective band-aid, but still a band-aid. When the "Vader killed your father" dialogue was written, there was no intention of making Vader Luke's father, and no one watching the movie would have taken it as anything other than a plain statement of fact.

You say that no one had ever even considered the possibility that Vader was Luke's father, but the same applies to the Lightspeed Ram. No one in the fandom had ever even considered the possibility.

The difference between the scenes is that the Vader reveal was contradicting facts established on screen, and that the Lightspeed Ram was just contracting assumptions.

So this seems to be chalked up to attributing the motives generally associated with the term I used, to me. Which is not the case. Understandable, these things happens in conversations all the time and I should've outlined my meaning of the term more clearly. That's my bad, not yours. So I apologize for that.

Apology accepted.

So to clarify

When I use the term, it is specifically to refer to a character who is written in such a way that the stakes of the setting, or the rules and limitations that other characters are required to adhere to, do not apply to them. Consider it shorthand for "writing so bad that it causes a myriad of problems both for the supporting characters, and the story being told as a whole." and my critique doesn't change based on the character's gender, just the shorthand used (Gary Stu for a male, etc.). If that's offensive, I apologize, as that's not what I mean when I use the term.

Okay, let's put your definition to the test. By your definition, the following characters are Gary Stus:
Mace Windu
Anakin Skywalker
Luke Skywalker
Emperor Palpatine (Prior to the Sequel Trilogy)
Darth Maul

I would also politely ask that you avoid using the term "toxic fanboy" to be dismissive of others, when you don't intend to engage beyond attempting to shame someone for an opinion or critique you don't agree with. It adds nothing to the conversation, and only serves as a way to heighten tension and hostility, when you consider that the term is used, anymore, as a way to insult or denigrate others.

Fair enough, I apologize

[Jcogginsa]

Unrelated to anything else being discussed, I decided to start rereading One Piece from the beginning the other day.

I've gotten through the Alabasta Arc and am genuinely impressed at how quickly it finds its stride (Baratie Arc specifically) and then how consistently it has maintained a solid level of quality for like 950 odd chapters.

Sometimes the incredibly popular thing is just actually really good. It's real mental comfort food in these trying times.

If you haven't watched them, I highly recomend Totally not Mark's videos on One Piece, they're good.

I will say I think that IS the nice thing about TLJ, its reception is such that there isn't a consensus on it. Allows for a lot of discussion... and ultimately I feel it's better than Rise of Skywalker, or TFA. JJ Abrams is a hack.

I think if the third film had stuck the landing, TFA would work better in hindsight.

A lot of films lull you into a false sense of security in the first film, then pull the rug out from under you in the second act. TFA and TLJ are like if those two acts were whole films. If the Third film had stuck with what TLJ set up, then the whol trilogy would have felt more cohesive

Infinity War and Endgame pull a similar trick in a two film format. The first film is, to the average movie goer, just a standard superhero flick. Heroes fight a bad guy, then beat bad guy. Only here, the bad guy wins. And the second film is about that.

They should've cut to black and rolled credits after this scene.



Imagine if they let the audience stew and speculate - for two years, even - about the fallout from a potential and explicit alliance that threatened to uproot everything?

But then the movie kept going, oh well.

While I can see how that would have been fairly effective, Rian himself had to deal with his own cliff hanger that, while much smaller, still constrained him in ways that hurt the narrative. (Largely in terms of in universe time frame), so I can see why he wouldn't want to do the same thing to someone else

[Guy1]

[grampagen]

While I can see how that would have been fairly effective, Rian himself had to deal with his own cliff hanger that, while much smaller, still constrained him in ways that hurt the narrative. (Largely in terms of in universe time frame), so I can see why he wouldn't want to do the same thing to someone else

I'm not so certain I would attribute that level of magnanimity to Rian Johnson as a collaborator given the flow of this trilogy, but I haven't done a deep dive on the guy, so that's moot.

It's subjective to taste, certainly, but in terms of higher order narrative concerns and storytelling, showing less in this instance would resonate quite a bit more. Just enough fallout to get shaken up about, enough potential possibilities to build upon, both ample material for things to return to in the sequel. After spending the whole movie poking holes in established structures, pointing out the folley of the cyclical storytelling, why not cap it off with a gut punch that gestures towards something entirely new?

On the other hand, showing that the remnants of the Resistance could, all of them, fit on the Millennium Falcon at the end, and the stable boy who we never return to, was showing just a hair too much.

Commit to the bit, gimme the down ending.

[Jcogginsa]

The ultimate subversion of expectations is that the Snyder Cut is apparently good.

[Postmania]

I'll believe it when I see it (never)

[master of read]

The funny thing is that this Definition would exclude the character which the term was named after. As well as any character from a movie which is not part of a franchise

here's the thing. i'm not using it a cover-up for not liking a character. there are tons of character in fiction that i don't like who don't fall under the classical definition of a sue/stu. if a character exhibits those qualities as per the original definition, i will call it out as such.

[Len Ikari145]

here's the thing. i'm not using it a cover-up for not liking a character. there are tons of character in fiction that i don't like who don't fall under the classical definition of a sue/stu. if a character exhibits those qualities as per the original definition, i will call it out as such.

Hell, the majority of Isekai protagonists fall under the Gary Stu definition.

[master of read]

Hell, the majority of Isekai protagonists fall under the Gary Stu definition.

very much so. and i don't like the vast majority of them. there is probably.........4 or 5 isekai MCs that i actually like and only because the author is doing something interesting with the character. take "sword king". the MC is uber overpowered as a swordsman but it's only due to a glitch. he can't use his full power but the author gave good reasons for why he can't go full power all the time. i can't say without spoiling the story, which you should read for yourself.

but yeah, if i don't like a character, i'll just say my peace so that people get why i don't like them. not gonna misuse a literary term for that.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

[Beadle]

Welp, the first episode of Falcon & Winter Soldier was much more classic MCU fayre.

I’m surprised they didn’t follow the usual Disney+ policy of dropping Episodes 1 & 2 together, especially considering we’re still very, very much in the set-up phase.

Four things:
spoilers:

1. Batroc. Though not in it for long so far. 2. The Flag Smashers, including presumably Flag Smasher himself as the leader. 3. John Walker (please, please make him something near the arsehole he was in the early days). 4. Things to come. In the end credits graphics we see Sharon Carter and then right at the end a Zemo mask. They are really trying to cram a lot of Cap-content into one series. What’s next? Arnim Zola? Machinesmith? Sleeper robots?

end of spoilers

[master of read]

you know, i've never been a fan of zack snyder. not a hater. just never been a fan.

but...................i will say he knocked it out of the park with ZC justice league.

best 4 hours i've spent in a long time.